Georgette Heyer and me
It took me time to warm up to Georgette Heyer. I don't like her mysteries, and some of her books are pretty thin stuff.Then I read a few I liked. Arabella, Venetia, the Grande Sophy, Cotillian, Sylvester or the Wicked Uncle... These Old Shades, Masquerade..
Today is is Civil Contract.
About an arranged marriage between a impoverished Viscount and the daughter of a immensely wealthy Cit, which enables Adam, the Hero, to save his patrimony which his handsome dissolute father ( possibly suicide?) has squandered as the bosom friend of The Prince of Wales in a life of excessive self indulgence with mistresses and horses and bad investments and gambling at Newmarket. Self indulgent to the max.
I've quickly skimmed it through, and will read it again slowly and carefully as it is thought provoking. Her characterazations of interactions with people is masterful.
First of all the heroine, Jenny Chawleigh the plain and plump daughter of the nabob... The character of her father, Jonathan Chawleigh a fond despot who loves his girl is sweeping. A wonderful character. I really adore some of her characters from the impish spoiled child Edmond in Sylvester, to the rescued mutt called Ulysses, in Arabella .She is wonderful describing dogs.
Jenny intends to make Adam comfortable, but so could a good housekeeper in his pay.
He isn't completly happy to marry Jenny as he was in love with Julia, a very overly sensitive and spoiled beauty who really wants everyones love and admiration, and who swooms at the sight of Adam, after his marriage to Jenny. Jenny is her schoolmate who had been a friend.
Julia is a fainter, prone to histrionics, and demands everyones attention at all times. Possibly modelled afte Caroline Lamb.
Adam realizes that he may have to sell all the family holdings, and that he can't marry Julia, her father would not allow it, plus her father is not rich. While he esteems Adam, Julia needs a rich and indulgent husband, not one impoverished.
He sends Mr Chawleigh to make a proposition to Adam, as Jonathan Chawleigh wants a title for his daughter and he will take over the mortgages to Adams family holdings and leave everything to Jenny at his death. Also very generous though Adam tries to keep his bounty within reason so as not to be overwhelmingly beholden to his father in law.
Julia is a Romantic who will faint at the drop of a hat, and claims she would be happy with Adam in a thatched cottage, with a pig, some chickens and a cow to milk. Of course she would grow to hate her life in reality very quickly, but she is very spoiled by attention since she is considered a beauty. She despises Jenny as being mundane, with no looks or sensativity.
Jenny who knows she is to be married only for her fathers money, is willing to marry Adam. though he doesn't remember her, she got to know him in part as she is a school friend, visiting Julia, and while Adam was recuperating from various operations from a ball to his hip received in the Napoleonic campaign in the Penisula. (Portugal) She has grown to love him, even though he has no feelings for her at all.
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Comments
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While I certainly could not write a Georgette Heyer book, too thin or rich and entertaining, I will comment that I would have given Jenny a bit more to work with in charming her husband.
Having his child, looking to his every comfort makes him value her. His family estates are saved, he realizes that his marriage to Julia would have been a mistake, yet she was his first strong love. Jenny is plain, not of his class, charmless if pleasant and accomadating to everyone around her. She doesn't value herself, and expects little.
Adam and Jenny are comfortable together, though she does all the adjusting and calming of any troubled waters. He has the estate to run, she has the house and a new child.
I would have given Jenny less practicality, and a bit more spunk. I also would not have made a to do about her short neck and the probability that she would become stout as she matured. Heyer piles on the woman and her lack of looks or attributes other than practicallity and ability to make life comfortable, (with loads of money) for her husband.
I would have given her some personality. She has been short changed by the author.
From what she writes, in describing Jenny, it seems Heyer used Queen Victoria in her middle years as a model. Even Victoria as a young girl had some looks. Victoria also had a silvery voice, and Heyer gives Jenny nothing in the way of a pleasing manner, voice, hair. About all she says is that she isn't an antidote, or outright ugly. Overdressed, proasic, with common sense. What a flat.
The book isn't a romance. The characters aren't suited to each other, but they seem to have a comfortable marriage in the end. It irritates a lot of younger readers. I can well see why. Older readers don't seem quite as upset. A marriage of conveniance that is comfortable.
Julia is a pill. Adams mother is profoundly selfish( a usual Heyer type) Jonathan ,his new father in law, is boorish, used to getting what he wants, and heavy handed, but he tries not to impose his company on someone he regards as his superior in rank, but not superior in drive. The two men end up respecting each other.
Everything is tied up nicely, but I was annoyed with the short shrift that the author gave Jenny. It all worked out well enough, and I enjoyed the book at the same time that I was irritated. She constantly puts down Jennys appearance, plump, running to fat, ordinary, out of place, flat in manner, always practical, even boring. Heyer could have leavened the mix, given her a few attractive or endearing traits. Some plump ordinary woman can have a warmth.
Now his first love, Julia, isn't likeable. She is more the usual type Romance novel ninny, very self centered, wants to be the star of every show.
Jenny is somewhat likeable but flat emotionally, and while Jenny isn't a door mat, it seems without her father blustery ways and her fathers money to float Adams boat, Jenny would never marry. Would be her fathers housekeeper for the remaider of her life. Rich, loved by her father. Not sad, but not complete. Without her fathers help or money there would be no husband.
She did become Adams excellent housekeeper-wife, manageing the servants, and making sure he had every comfort," because gentlemen like to be comfortable in their own homes". And who doesn"t pray tell? He does value Jenny primarily because she puts his comforts first and expects little for herself in return. Hell, not a doormat, but pretty damn close.. Her father valued her because she was his daughter, and wants her happy because he loves her. He will do anything to make his daughter happy, though he wants the title for her as well. Or for his own vanity as a rich man going up in the world.
Does Adam care if his wife is happy? I don't know, not that it matters, these are Georgette Heyers puppets, but they are so well rounded that one wishes them to have more than they have. She wrote that Jonathan tried to take over the book, well I wish he had run away with it. Heyer didn't like writing this book, she was sorry she started it. But it is interesting, very different from her usual run of romantic trifles which are comic in their own way and quirky as hell.
Julia marries a rich older nobleman, with two teen daughters, and she is pleased with his attentions, money for her fripperies and vanity, constant flattery of a man with beautiful arm candy, and his simple daughters admiration. He understands his Julia and gives her what she requires, constant attention. Though she still wants Adam. She would not be adverse to an affair. Or so it seems to me. She suggest it before she marries while Jenny is pregnant. Julia's attractions are obvious, but Adam resists.
Heyer doesn't write about sexual doings. She implies. I prefer it that way. I think a lot of the soft core porn in modern Regency novels is tacky and repetitive. Same ole, same ole depending on the authors imagination. I skip over it, though it sells.
Heyers male heros can be too noble as long as they are dealing with women of their own class. There are penalties to pay. Though many of her hero males are rakes and they don't hesitate using or even ruining women that are not of their own exhalted (I'm being snippy here) class. What the women do after they are ruined is no concern of theirs for most of these rakes. And there are women who welcome this chance to better themselves financially.
Women got short shrift in past times. Very few rights, and lots of restrictions.
Adam sees how shallow Julia is, but she was his first love and will be remembered with fondness. i At the end, he sees her for what she is, and realizes life with Julia would have been difficult with her attitudes and needs. He has a difficult and tiresome mother, he wouldn't want one more difficult woman as a wife. Eventually she would have grated on his nerves.
Julias husband realizes Adam has lost his illusions about Julia. Julia has a husband who has no illusions about his charming and beautiful wife, but feeds his wifes vanity, understanding her need to be Queen of every heart, the star of every play.
Jenny seems happy enough to have what she does have. And yet?????
We can't change other people no matter how hard we will try. Adam is Adam, and what he can give her is limited respect and caring, and a very comfortable if lukewarm kind of love. She would like some passion, but she values what she does have, even if she would like something more. She takes what he can give in affection and care.
These characters are very real, very rounded out. But is that all there is?? Is that really all there is??? Maybe that is, but a lot of readers felt irritated. They want emotional satisfaction from fictional characters, not realism.
I would guess Adam would find someone else later in his marriage, someone he finds more attracive physically, but will always value Jenny as a good wife and mother to their children, and close to his sisters and indulgent to his mother. Jenny gives and everyone else gets.
Jenny even suggests she would accept infidelity, and tells him that she would never betray Adam.
She has no vanity, accepts that she has no looks, and little charm. Now I would have given her some charm. Many overweight and unattractive women have charm and are loved. But Heyer persists in stamping her as hopeless in looks or excitement of any sort.
I really don't think it was enough. I might settle for that now at a advanced age being satisfied with a warm, comfortable companionship with someone I felt drawn to, but I wouldn't have settled for less when I was younger. I didn't have to.
While this character Jenny gets so little in the way of personality, Heyers women tend to be very much strong individuals. some with good looks, and some stunning, some intelligent, and some without looks but loads of character. She really has interesting characters, both male and female.
Very entertaining novels.Posted 05-16-2012 at 03:10 PM by lilly 
Updated 05-18-2012 at 10:53 AM by lilly -
I'll use this blog to review more of Heyer's books
Will look for the audio books by Richard Armitage and other readers. Sometimes a book is enhanced by a good reader.
Today will start on "the Spanish Bride". A novel based on a real couple. Brigade-Major Harry Smith in Portugal ends up marrying a 14 year old Spanish Noblewoman. They were together in the Penisular War, went to America together for the War of 1812 and then together at Waterloo. As much a history and less of a romance. The NYTimes called it "Perfect Craftmanship".
Some people hate it, others find it interesting. I'm indifferent. She isn't good writing about real people who have already written about themselves. Too constricting. She is best with her own imaginary characters, perhaps based a bit on historical types.
I stopped at the Duke of Wellingtons mansion in London, one day when they were doing a historical re-enactment with historical costumes, including camp followers and women of that day.
I got off the subway after an altercation with 3 skin heads. London can be dangerous. the authorites said they would have them thrown off at the next stop. They had got on in Picadilly Circus, and were frightening all the females in the car, as they were both drunk, and on drugs and being very nasty, all with a leer and a big smile. I called them junk yard dogs, got off and talked to security.The authorities were very sensative to this in London, as the day before a woman had been attacked on the subway line. So I was in a warlike mood, since the men on the subway didn't do or say anything until I gave the trio a bit of my mind, the men quietly thanked me when I told the SOB's off. Seeing the changing of the costumed officers outside of Wellingtons house fit in to my mood. My adrenalyn was surging.Had a chat with the re-enactors. They do get a big charge out of stepping into other roles outside of their work a day world.
What I remember of the Dukes mansion. The giant Napoleon in a Toga. And a hundred really fifth rate paintings, plus... I can't say he bought anything worth buying, but he thought so, and spent and spent. They pleased him, but tastes do change.
The paintings of the Duke of Wellington are a different thing entirely. Excellent.Posted 05-16-2012 at 03:15 PM by lilly
Updated 05-20-2012 at 01:24 PM by lilly -
Will be reading the Unknown Ajax. Find Heyer very soothing reading. She can be so snobbish and didn't like Jewish people, but in that she is a woman of her time and class in England.
Also true of the people she was writing about. Her books are unpredictable. Some empty to me, and others full of wit and interesting characters in a very wide range.
Unlike current prolific novelists who seem to have certain formulas, and stories in which your heroines , and their matching males in slightly varying stories, but essentially the same people with different names. Tried and True.
Heyer range of males and females are uniquely hers. I can't see anyone else writing in her style, though I have seen plaguerisms from other modern romance writers. Namely the berry picking episode in Arabella or was it Venetia?
Heyer had plenty of money problems. Sounds like she was taxed into being a prolific writer. The money earner in the family. The more she ran, the be hinder she got when it came to taxation. The welfare state in its infancy. England really socked it to high earners.
About the only exempt people are the Royals, who live high on the hog. (What does that mean? High on the hog?)
Quite a racket.Posted 06-05-2012 at 03:32 PM by lilly
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Time to write something worth reading. Cutting back on internet viewing and writing.
Frittering away time is frittering away life.Posted 06-06-2012 at 02:38 PM by lilly
Updated 06-07-2012 at 12:52 PM by lilly -
Skimmed through "the Unknown Ajax".
Difficult people in a difficult family. What would be called Assholes in this day.
Hugo the hero, is a big, quiet, unpretentious, and with a sense of humor. His father a second son but a favorite son was disinherited because he married a weavers daughter.
Grandfather is a snob of the old school. A real jackass.
He has a foul temper with tiresome snobby sons, or grandsons who take after him.
Hugo will be his heir, and he has called him to the estate to look him over. Everyone underestimates Hugo.
The house is going to rack and ruin. Ancestor (Elizabethan) was murdering scum, but got the title. Hugo, unknown to the old man, inherited a half a million from his weaver grandfather who owned a mill in Yorkshire. The old man thinks he is in control and calls all the shots. That Hugo only has his prize money from the wars.
Actually it is Hugo who is looking over the old men and the family. and who saves their bacon. It is the only family he has, so he takes them as they are.
Frankly I'de call it a day and tell the snobs to go to hell.Posted 06-07-2012 at 10:41 AM by lilly
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Ah, Hugo wasn't all that keen to stay on with his grandfather and his grandsons who were summoned to try and make a silk purse out of the sows ear that he assumed his Yorkshire grandson would be.
He lapses into a broad Yorkshire accent to irritate his relations a bit, they are so condensending and think themselves his superior. He is Harrow educated, and at 18 was going to Sweden Fighting in South America. Had been round the world, a prisoner of war, half dead from fever as a prisoner an active soldier and leader. Much the superior man of the world, and leader than his snobbish cousins, who are Londoners, and totally worthless and superficial. All, well dressed, and disdainful of anyone who they consider of the "lower orders." And in their eyes he is a "Weavers brat." He would have left immediately, but is somewhat interested in his female cousin, also in finding out something about his dead fathers family. He is big, and deceptively stolid, amused by their pretentiousness, and putting THEM down with a bit of humorous tongue in cheek. His cousin Vincent is very nasty. His grandfather a totally boorish and unpleasant. A bully to everyone around him, except one favored grandson Richmond.
A bit like one of the Dukes of Marlboroughs, in the 1920's telling one of his staff who sent a subordinate in his place because he was ill. "The lower orders have no business being sick." LOL. I have known people like that.
Was taken by his cousin. He calls her "love" at one point which she objects to, he explains it is a common expression used in the North, and it is. I remember being called love, over and over in England. Here I get called dear now and then by strange men.
I will read it start to finish this week. Have a few parties to attend, and it will amuse me to spot the snobs. That hasn't changed one bit in two hundred years. LOL. People can be just as pretentious, but they can't get away with it as much as they did in the past.
Interesting tidbit. The only fan letter Heyer kept was from a Romanian women who had been a political prisoner for twelve years. She said she kept herself and her fellow prisoners sane for twelve years by telling and retelling the polt to Fridays Child over and over again.
I find I don't always like these books on first skimming through them, which is my habit. A quick skim and the discard if it isn't to my taste. A second real read if it is.
I would say about a fourth of her historicals meet my tastes, a lot irritate, and some I won't even skim through.
Fridays child wasn't that interesting to me. I'll have to look at it again.
Sometimes even the irritation with a book doesn't hold when you get into it. First impressions aren't always valid, just as in life.Posted 06-07-2012 at 02:40 PM by lilly
Updated 06-08-2012 at 04:09 PM by lilly -
As I am writing a novel set in that period, it is so obvious that without family you were a dead duck. Your goose was cooked. As a man, you could hack it, as a single female without money or family to protect you, you were guaranteed to have a rough life.
Women don't know how good they have it in this century and in a western culture.
Even with beauty. For a woman intelligence wasn't enough, better good looks and drive.Posted 06-09-2012 at 01:06 PM by lilly
